{"id":62896,"date":"2016-04-07T22:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-07T22:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=62896 "},"modified":"2016-04-07T22:05:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T22:05:00","slug":"62896-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=62896","title":{"rendered":"Two Decades After Forced Relocation, Yangtze Dam Evictees Lack Compensation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">2016-04-06<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2016\/13\/201646image(42).jpg\" alt=\"201646image(42).jpg (600&#215;400)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Protesters demand that government officials compensate them for forced evictions and relocations from the Three Gorges Dam project in the Hechuan district of Chongqing in southwestern China, April 5, 2016.<\/span><\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Photo courtesy of protesters<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">More than 20 years after construction began on China&#8217;s massive Yangtze River hydropower project, the Three Gorges dam, hundreds of people are still pursuing complaints over their eviction and relocation, petitioners told RFA on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Some 1.2 million people living along the banks of the Yangtze were relocated during the 1990s to make way for the project.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">But many say they have yet to receive the promised amount in compensation.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;This hasn&#8217;t been resolved for any of us yet,&#8221; a petitioner surnamed Wu, who was among 500 people relocated to the megacity of Chongqing for the project, told RFA.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We made complaints, and the police told us to go home, and we were escorted back home [by interceptors],&#8221; he said. &#8220;When we got home, still nothing was done, even though the Three Gorges Construction Committee knows about our situation.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A woman who gave only her surname Tang said she and many others relocated to Chongqing are similarly affected, but are too busy making a living to have time to pursue long-running compensation claims.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I know that the relocation authorities didn&#8217;t proceed according to government policy, and that nobody has had their case resolved yet,&#8221; Tang said. &#8220;They are just dragging their feet.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I haven&#8217;t had time to come up with a plan because I now have to work so I can put food on the table,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We have no land left now.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">They dare not act&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">A third resident, surnamed Li, said the communities had moved so as to cooperate with a state construction project, but that the government had appropriated their compensation money.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;We have been to complain about this, but they do nothing about it,&#8221; Li said. &#8220;We have even been to Beijing on several occasions, but they dare not act.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">He said local media were also apparently barred from covering the lack of compensation.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;Journalists don&#8217;t dare to report this either,&#8221; Li said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Meanwhile, a petitioner surnamed Xie said he has been detained for pursuing his compensation claims in the face of official stonewalling.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;I am doing this to protect my own interests regarding the matter of compensation,&#8221; Xie said, in apparent fear of being found out speaking to overseas media. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what to tell you &#8230; It&#8217;s not convenient for me to speak.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Local residents, who were relocated from towns and villages along a 193-kilometer (120-mile0 stretch upstream of the Three Gorges dam site, say they have received less than 30,000 yuan (U.S. $4,600) per person in compensation, far less than was promised in the original relocation deal.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-family: \u5b8b\u4f53; font-size: 12pt;\">&#8216;<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Festering bog&#8217;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Environmental activists have repeatedly criticized Beijing&#8217;s flagship dam as a prestige project for the ruling Chinese Communist Party that has brought environmental catastrophe to delicate ecosystems.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">&#8220;The environmental impacts of the project are profound and are likely to get worse as time goes on,&#8221; the pressure group International Rivers said in an article on the Three Gorges on its website.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">It said hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps were submerged in the flooding of the Three Gorges section of the Yangtze, creating a &#8220;festering bog of effluent, silt, industrial pollutants and rubbish in the reservoir.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">While the sheer weight of water in the reservoir has raised concerns among seismologists over reservoir-induced earthquakes, the damming of such a large river has threatened fisheries and caused massive soil erosion downstream, the group said.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Chinese officials acknowledged for the first time in 2011 that there are &#8220;urgent problems&#8221; linked to the construction of the dam.<\/span><\/p>  <p>&nbsp;<\/p>  <p><br \/><\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div>  <p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/two-decades-after-forced-relocation-yangtze-dam-evictees-lack-compensation-04062016113308.html\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">For detail please visit here<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;&quot;We made complaints, and the police told us to go home, and we were escorted back home [by interceptors],&quot; he said. &quot;When we got home, still nothing was done, even though the Three Gorges Construction Committee knows about our situation.&quot;&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}